Ep 168 | More than YouTube? New Media Academy

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Sitting at the computer is just a small part of what you do in a typical day. It's a lot of communication, it's a lot of just project management and reaching out to clients and keeping track of when the deadlines are. It's like you said, it's a lot of soft skills that come into play. And what a great opportunity for a student to get those soft skills because a lot of my students have never had a job.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambia County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. If you've spent more than 10 minutes with any kid over the age of five, you've heard them say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up. It's a sentiment that has made more than a few adults wince at the potential of the future as they consider not only the next generation of adults, but the next generation of media. My next guest is doing the work of cultivating what kids are interested in while also keeping them eligible for actual jobs. He is the digital media teacher at Pine Forest High School, and today he's going to share how the new media academy is helping kids develop skills deeper than internet fame. Cultivating collaboration, communication, and content, media mentor Brian Dawson. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Thanks for having me. Excited to talk about it. Yeah, so our programs at Pine Forest High School, we're in the workforce education kind of category. It's a four-year program. And as freshmen students come in and we dive right into graphic design. So we like to start off with that just because it kind of builds uh into some of the other disciplines. So we start off with Adobe Photoshop, and we actually go for the industry certifications with that. So it's called the Adobe Certified Associate certification, and that's the same certification that a lot of industry professionals that are working right now have. So after Adobe Photoshop, kind of learning the fundamentals of photography, graphic design, we move into Adobe Illustrator, which is more of a instead of a pixel-based program, it's a vector-based program. And that's more for creating assets from scratch versus editing pre-existing photos. So from there, if students get both of those certifications, we can also move them into Adobe InDesign. And that's more for print-based media. And so at the end of that first year, a freshman student could potentially have three industry certifications, and they have a great foundation to continue the program if it's something that they really clicked with. So sophomores, when they come in in that second year of the program, we go into video production. So we start with Adobe Premiere Pro. It's a very widely used program. Most of the videos that you see on YouTube, they were edited with Premiere Pro. So we go after that certification. And then when they get that, they move into Adobe After Effects, which is more animations and special effects, more complex, sort of composite video work through there. And the best part about that second year is when students start off working for ENN, which is Eagle Nation News. And that's going to be our morning news program that we do each day. So it's five days a week. We shoot for around five minutes per episode. And that's just a great opportunity for students to work together in a team. That class is a mixture of sophomores, juniors, and seniors. So we have year two, three, and four students working all together on that same program. So as a sophomore, you're kind of starting out with the more basic tasks. You might come in and learn how to use the teleprompter, or you might get trained on the soundboard. And then as you prove yourself, as you get more experience, the upper level students are kind of watching for which students are showing potential. And they may move those students up into kind of a mentor spot where they say, Hey, I noticed you're really taking a liking to this, and I'd like to show you how our broadcast computer works, which could be really scary. You know, we call it the alienware because it's a big alienware PC, and kids are like, Oh, I don't know about that. That sounds scary. But usually one of those upper level students will kind of take that student under their wing and just have them sit next to them and basically shadow that position until they're comfortable and then it'll get turned over to them to run. And that's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

You have such a unique vantage point, I feel like, because I mean all of the academies do, but I feel like the media academy may be unique because of those mixing of ages. I'm curious what that's like for you, though, to watch the kids. You said they go from feeling very intimidated in some areas to confident and mentoring other kids. What's that like to watch a 14-year-old go from 14 to 18 through your academy?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

It's magical. I don't know how else to describe that because I'm thinking of one particular student right now that when he first started, his whole freshman year, very quiet, very shy, incredibly talented, very smart guy, but you know, just kind of kept to himself. And I was a little nervous about how he would do in the second year. He definitely expressed interest in coming back. And his second year, we started to involve him more in some of the group projects. And sure enough, over time, he has basically transformed to where he's no longer this shy guy that you barely hear a pee from. He's actually the one that's starting to organize projects and talk to teammates about different tasks that need to be done. And, you know, of course, joking around and just becoming comfortable in that environment. And now he's shaping up to be the leader of our academy. So to go from one of the shyest kids and the whole 140-so students that I have to this is my right-hand man now, and he's communicating very effectively, not just with students, but with adults.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

You know what's so funny about that is when you think about a digital anything, Media Academy, online course. I mean, it sounds very dark basement with empty cans of Mountain Dew.

unknown 6:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

And the contrast of what you're talking about is like these soft skills of collaboration, but also confidence, which is like every parent wants their child to feel and act confidently. But who would have thought it could come through a whole academy dedicated to the virtual?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Exactly. Yeah. I think sometimes parents have that perception that it's just sitting at computers all day and just, and sometimes the kids have that perception when they first come in. And the first year can be a little bit like that because we have so much ground to cover with the certifications. But yeah, once they hit that second year and start working on the morning news program, sitting at the computer is just a small part of what you do in a typical day. It's a lot of communication, it's a lot of just project management and reaching out to clients and keeping track of when the deadlines are. It's like you said, it's a lot of soft skills that come into play. And what a great opportunity for a student to get those soft skills because a lot of my students have never had a job. Even as a junior or a senior, they've never held a part-time job. But this is the perfect environment to basically it's a simulated part-time job. They're not being paid, but they're having a lot of those same responsibilities, and it's requiring those communication skills that you would need for most jobs.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, you said in our pre-chat, it was a safe place for them to make mistakes. Is that related to the job experience?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Definitely, definitely. And that's a great thing. I mean, part of our jobs as educators is to oversee those mistakes. I mean, mistakes are how you learn. And there's a lot of mistakes, but they happen every day in my program. And I would hope that my students see the value in those mistakes. And, you know, they'll come to me sometimes and say, Mr. Dawson, I messed up. This happened, that happened. And I always try and tell them that's okay. I've made that same mistake. And here's what I learned from it. And here's how you can go forward and make sure that we don't do that again. And there's some kind of Socratic method there, asking leading questions. Well, why do you think that happened? What do you think maybe we could do next time that would avoid that situation? And so they come to the right conclusion most of the time. And that's very satisfying to see that that growth. And then they have those opportunities for redemption the next time something comes up. And they'll come and tell me, hey, I didn't mess that up. I think I'm ready for that.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Well, that's also building modeling for teamwork, right? So if a team member messes up, you've modeled to them what that response can look like. Oh, okay, that's all right. I've done that too. It's the feel-felt-found method that is used in sales a lot. Oh, I have felt that way too. Here's what I found. I understand how you feel that whole thing. So that's really, I would imagine, part of that communication. Are those soft skills of communication, collaboration? I think you mentioned in the pre-chat writing, even, are those officially a part of the curriculum or are those happy side effects?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah. If you look at the standards for the Florida State standards for my curriculum, there's basically two categories of standards. There's one category that apply just to the software skills and the things related to cameras and software programs. But then there's also a cluster of standards that apply to basically any career and technical education program. And those are in the standards, the soft skills, employability, things like that. And while a lot of the times we're not explicitly teaching those things, they happen every day. And the students that do have jobs, they confirm that. It's like, oh, this came up at my job, and I'm really glad we talked about that.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Well, speaking of real world, what do the students have in their mind about what these skills will equal once they graduate?

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, that's a great question. I think students, when they come in at first, are a little unsure about what all digital media entails. And I think sometimes parents also are just kind of unclear about what do we do? What are the different career possibilities? There seems to be a misconception from parents that this is not a lucrative field, right? And so we had mentioned in our peach at one of the things that I might want to work more on in the future. And I think I'd like to incorporate a career research paper, the Bureau of Labor Statistics.gov. It's a great website because you can look up pretty much any job or career field, and it'll give you a breakdown of how many thousands of jobs are available each year in that particular career field. What is your required education? What is a typical yearly salary? And what's an entry level make versus someone who's been in there for 10 years? What's the projected growth over a 10-year time period? And I think those types of things would be great for students to kind of go through and just look at things like what's a video editor make, what's required for that, photographer, graphic designer. And there's such a broad range of things you can do in this field, the whole field of marketing, communications. So I think that's something that I'd really like to have students explore a little more going forward. And we talk about those things kind of organically, but just making it more of a formal kind of project. So bringing it back to writing, that's a great outlet for some of that writing that they're already doing in their English class, but how can we apply it here? They're always looking for kind of cross-discipline type of projects. So I think that'd be a great way to do it because students need to understand writing doesn't just happen in an English classroom. It happens all over. And people out in their various job fields are going to be required to write all the time. So that comes into play in our studio, for example. We have to write the script for the show. Anytime we're making like a promotional video, a student has to come up with a script. And sometimes we get things from outside clients, and the students are like, Mr. Dawson, this just doesn't sound right. I don't think the grammar's correct here. And so we'll go through, we'll look at it together and make sure that it comes out right. So it it comes up a lot.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Even an email communication would be an example of just everyday writing, not just grammar, but etiquette and conciseness.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah, we definitely go over how to write a professional email because that's a big thing for whatever reason. It seems like students don't quite get that when they've come to me. I'm like, really? You've never done this before? But hey, we're a career and technical education course. So if they're going to get it anywhere, this is a great spot to do it. And that comes up a lot because I have my upper level students email clients. So instead of me interacting with a client, they may reach out to me and say, Hey, could you provide media coverage for this regional track meet? That's what's a big deal. It's going to be happening at our school. And I'll show my student the email. I'll forward it to them and say, why don't you reach out to them and follow up with them, see if you can set up a meeting and figure out what their deliverables are? What are they expecting? When is it due? And just kind of run through some of those things so that they can manage those projects effectively. And so, yeah, they're the ones doing those types of communications. And I always get good feedback from those clients, like, wow, your students are so professional. And I take pride in that because that's a big deal. That's an important skill for just life in general.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

I think parents would be surprised to know that there is external communication on behalf of the student. So tell me more about who the clients are.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Yeah, so just organically, a lot of it happens from our school. So I'd like to give a shout-out to my administration because they really see the value in our program. And I'm sure it's beneficial for them because they get to have an effective way to spread the word about whatever they need to get the word out about. But Miss McElhaney, Ms. Jordan, Ms. King, they're some of our biggest clients because they'll come to us or to our students and say, hey, we have freshman welcome night coming up. We'd love to put a video together that shows all of our academies and highlights some of our great clubs and our sports. And so a lot of the clients are through our school, but then we also get asked by district level people all the time for different projects. So one of the big ones that we do is the LDI dinner video. And that's basically highlighting the principal of the year and the assistant principal of the year. And they play it at the leader, I think it's the Leadership Development Institute dinner. So all the principals, assistant principals, administrators are there, and they're watching this 10-minute video that we have produced. And that involves a lot of planning, a lot of pre-production. I usually rent a vehicle from the airport. We take five or six of my best students and pack it up full gear. We go to the schools, we interview the principals, we go through the rooms and shoot B-roll of different aspects of the school that the principals want to highlight. And that's one of the best parts of the job, really, is just getting out and doing a real production. And it's not just us sitting in our classroom on computers, it's us traveling somewhere. And we have a very tight schedule most of the time. And that's kind of the end game where we've been practicing for years for this moment. And we have to set up this gear quickly. We have to check and double check and make sure things recorded right before we break everything back down. So we've done several projects like that. We uh we went over to George Stone and we highlighted a bunch of their programs, like their welding program, their aviation mechanic program. And it's just a great opportunity for students to get real hands-on experience. I mean, it's a real production, and it's a blast because the students are having so much fun, but really they're demonstrating everything they've learned in those four years. Because usually it's a senior or a junior that we're taking, and they're doing everything from photography, videography, they're setting up gimbal stabilizers, they're setting up an external audio recorder, they're checking the exposure and just all those technical things that we talk about in the classroom, but now they're doing it for real. So all kinds of stuff. We went over to the Naval Aviation Museum and we showcased their flight adventure deck program. So we got to just interview the teachers over there. They bring in students from our schools and they have a great program that teaches them different elements of science, different theories of science, like things related to flight. And so those are just some of the projects that we've done. But we do a couple of those projects every year. And we're always kind of looking to see what's something new that we can do. What else can we get out and help with? And it's a great feeling for the students too, because they know that they're helping their community when they do those types of things.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Makes it real. And it's a way to take all those fun things that you learn and make something that you can show other people. And for you and I, we're like, ooh, gimbals and tripods, and we get really excited about these sorts of things. But I want to bring it back to something you said earlier about the career exploration aspect of it. So for parents who are slightly less excited about gimbals, you mentioned that you wanted to really beef up that part of the program with you using websites that show kind of the practical numbers side of it. But you and I both know that a lot of the jobs that we'll be looking for positions to fill five years from now might not even exist right now. I mean, think about like being a podcaster was not a position 10 years ago, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

That was changed.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Not a thing. So talk to me about what that looks like going out into the community with the students and kind of talking to real people, not just looking at those numbers on the website.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

That's a great question. I think I mentioned it earlier, but we do the multimedia advisory council meetings, and that's something that the workforce education department sets up for us. And that's just always such an eye-opening thing for me to participate in because that is a gathering of people from the community, whether it's from higher education, like QWF usually has a representative there, but we're frequently talking with people from WEAR, WSRE, Navy Federal, Lamar Advertising, and we get all these professionals in, and it's an opportunity for us to hear from them about where things are headed. I'll never forget when I think it was some somebody from WEAR, and it was one of their on-camera talents. And they said, for some of our stories, we don't even take a camera person. I just shoot it on my iPhone. And that was very eye-opening. It's like this is a professional out in the local industry, and this is how they're doing things because it's effective. Obviously, they can save a little money on their crew, and the audience member probably doesn't even tell the difference there. Um, and kind of what we gather from those meetings is especially with smaller organizations, places are looking for people who are multidisciplinary. So not just, hey, I'm just a video editor or I just do photo work. They're looking for people with a broader skill set, which is great because that's what we do. We I talked about freshman years, kind of graphic design and photography, sophomore years, videography. We do web design in our third year. So we just recently started working with WordPress. We were doing Adobe Dreamweaver, but talking with some people at the Multimedia Advisory Council meetings, especially professionals who do web design, they said, we're not really using Dreamweaver anymore. That's something that's just a little clunky for us. It slowed us down, and we found alternatives that work much better. And WordPress is one of those things that they mentioned. And so that's just one example of how I'm always trying to stay up to date with what's going on in the industry and adjust things about my academy accordingly. So this is the first year we did WordPress and we had a hundred percent pass rate on our certification for that one.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

That's impressive.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

It's great, yeah, because it's a pretty easy-to-use tool, but it's so effective. The websites that these kids created with it look very professional, and they can use that to create a portfolio of their work as a senior. And when they apply for their jobs or when they try to get into a program for college, they can link to that website that they've created that shows off their videos, their pictures, all their projects, their resume, and things like that. So we we do those types of things just to make sure that what we're teaching as best as possible is going to give them those skill sets that they need. So the workforce education department is very good about that. Steve Harrell, our director of workforce education, he's always saying, Hey, if there's a training you want to go to, if there's a conference, go do it. We will support you 100%. And so I I've done that recently. The last couple of years, I went to Adobe Map. In California, and just got to be in rooms with thousands of professionals from the industry and pick their brains. What do you, how do you guys do things?

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yeah, because what good is it to teach your students skills that you know are two years old? Because two years doesn't sound old, but you know, you want your kids to be ahead. And so when they're graduating, they're not just becoming YouTubers and TikTok influencers and trend chasing, but they have a multidisciplinary skill set where that they can really stand out from those other resumes and have a variety of jobs that they could do that scratch that creative itch that they may have, but also pay the real bills.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it just illustrates the point when you go to an event like that. Another one I went to this year was the National Association of Broadcasters trade show. And that was just very eye-opening as well, because when you go into those conference halls and you just see thousands of people, I mean, as far as the eye can see, and you get to look at their badges. And I'm standing next to the videographer for Red Bull, you know, and just get to talk to him about what projects he's working on. So the jobs are out there and now they're constantly evolving and changing. But that's why workforce education makes such a big push for us to do those types of things and supports us every step of the way.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Talk to me about AI. How is that going to be incorporated in the curriculum coming up, or how do you hope it will be? Because we have a variety of not just like technical skills to be learned, which is exciting, right? From like the geek side of me is like, ooh, how exciting that we can create images with less heavy lifting. But, you know, you're a philosophy major. So the ethical side is always there in the background asking the questions that are a little bit more challenging to answer.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Right. This has come up. I'm thinking of a particular student who, you know, when Adobe released their Firefly AI model, I was pretty excited because I had just seen it as it came out at Adobe Max last year. And I came back to my students, I said, hey guys, we got to try this out. I mean, this is blowing my mind. I want you guys to see this. And so we were messing around with it and experimenting with it and looking for different ways we could use it. And I had one student in particular, and it's like, I just really don't like this. It doesn't feel right. And it's not as good as I think what I could come up with. And I just love that debate because I think that's just a great example of the larger debate that's happening right now in the industry. You have some people who are just die hard. They want to stick to the traditional way of doing things. And then you have people on the opposite extremes where, hey, this changes everything. I'm going to use this for every job that I do from now on. And then you have those people in between that are kind of like me where I can see a lot of benefits and I can see a lot of downsides. I'm seeing just in school in general, students experimenting with things like Chat GPT. And I'm seeing them do some constructive, some very creative things that are, I think, a net positive. And I'm seeing them maybe use it for shortcuts to things that I think it would be better if they were just doing things on their own. So it's a push and pull with the AI thing. I think definitely in the industry, you're going to be at a huge disadvantage if you don't use it or if you don't at least understand how it works and maybe how other people are using it. So I do want to expose my students to it. And we have incorporated that. Sometimes it works out really well. Like one of my students was creating an image for us and was having trouble finding a good background for this image. And it's like, hey, I can I know what I need, but I can't find it. And sure enough, a couple of prompts in Adobe Firefly and it spits out of the thing that she needed, the exact thing that worked out for that image. So it's a complicated thing. I can definitely see where some of my students are coming from with the ethical dilemma there, because how these AI models are trained, there's some legal gray area there. What did they get the permission of all these photographers, all these people who studied their whole lives and put so much work into developing their craft and their skill? And now you can just go into and prompt, say, give me a photo in the style of XYZ photographer or artist. And there's definitely some things we're gonna have to figure out along the way. I think the regulations and our lawmakers are kind of playing catch up right now because of how fast things are moving. But these are conversations to have with my students and just make sure that they're aware of that landscape because it's something that you can't avoid it. You know, that's gonna be a reality.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Every technology has come with ethical questions. And we so quickly forget that like when the steam locomotive came out, it was like it's powered by the devil. And the ethics around how the railroad was built, right? And so there's always going to be these conversations. But what I find so exciting is that you're telling me that your students are thinking about that. And I think a lot of adults would be surprised, especially again in this big bucket of media. They picture more mindless selfies and they just kind of have this huge stereotype about the direction that young people are going. But there's some real shining stars. And I think we would be remiss to not mention one particular shining star before we wrap up our conversation today. So, do you want to talk about her?

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Yeah. So she's actually in the room with us right now. So Bethany Gurley came to me as a freshman, and she expressed to me early on that this is something that she was really interested in and that she had been thinking about this as a career choice even back in middle school and maybe even earlier. I forget the specifics, but you know, it's definitely a passion of hers. And those types of students are, I mean, that's what you're hoping for. You have all these different academies, and I think that's such a great thing because students have an opportunity to try things out all four years of high school. If they come to me as a freshman and doesn't click with them, they can go to the culinary academy and try things out over there. And they're figuring these things out before they have to spend money on it in college and waste all that time and all those resources and figure out, I don't actually like this. I thought I would, but now that I've seen what it's really like, I I think I just wasted a year of my college. So it's great for students to kind of go through those different programs. And especially when you get a student like Bethany who's driven and who has that end goal of, hey, this is something that I can see myself doing as a career. She has taken every opportunity that's been presented to her and ran with it. So she's gotten multiple industry certifications. I mean, she's certified in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects. But those are just, I would consider those smaller accomplishments consider considering the other things that she's kind of grown into. She's just incredible in terms of how can how she interacts with clients. So in this last year, she was kind of like the leader in our academy. And any big project would kind of filter through her. And she just did such a great job. All those skills that I mentioned earlier about soft skills, communicating with clients, and just really, it's almost like I don't even need to be there at that point. She's just done such a great job working with other students on the team. And she, for her senior year, that's when she got her internship. So working as a videography intern for the school district, which is another great thing. I'd love to give a shout out to Mr. Cody Strouther and just Mark from ID Group and people that give that opportunity to us because she has not only had a great experience in our academy, but now she's leaving for a couple times a week to go over there and work with them and see how things are done over in the real world, working for a real ad company and working for the communications coordinator for her whole school district. And in that time, she's gained even more real world experience and she's starting to enhance her resume for getting ready for the next steps. So she received a take stock in children's scholarship for college. So she'll be pursuing this as a as a degree in communications here in Pensacola. So it's really just a great success story. And how can I forget she won student intern of the year for the whole school district. And so that's just a great opportunity when when I'm talking to parents at things like we do the school choice expo every year in I think late October, early November. And that's a chance for students and parents who are in students that are in middle school or looking at all the different career academies. And when they stop by our booth and talk to us, I'm very honest with parents, there's so much you can get out of this program, but it's not just going to happen on its own. It's not just this magical thing we can give to your student. It's something that your student has to take advantage of and they have to put in the effort and they have to put in the work and they have to take it seriously. So Bethany is a great example of somebody who did all that. They saw the opportunities, they worked hard for them, they got them, and now they're set up for success for their next chapter in life. She's been offered jobs already before she's even graduated. And she's like, I would love that, but I want to continue my education. But what a great problem to have. Do I take this job in the career field or do I continue on with my education so I can hopefully get something a little bigger? So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

And I think parents would be so relieved and filled with hope, knowing that these sorts of skill sets are not a dis not a distraction, right? Because this is something that parents nowadays give their toddlers to give themselves free time. So from the beginning of that parent-child relationship, YouTube and things like it are literally just like distractions. They're placeholders. So to know that stuff like this cannot just be a placeholder, but it can be like the destination, the thing that leverages a good life and scholarships and in this case, certifications, I think is a real breath of fresh air. So thank you for being part of that bridge and thank you for coming and sharing about it.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Absolutely. Thanks for giving me the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of Escambia County Public Schools.